Ok, I've been advised........

I am very new to this forum. My husband would like to get rid of hi PC laptop. He wants a MAC laptop because we love them. Anyhow, he needs to run the PC software that comes with his curriculum on this machine to do powerpoint presentations for his students on a screen in the classroom. He would like to walk around the classroom talking and using a bluetooth or wireless mouse to access the pages of the program he's using. We were not impressed with the MacBook Pro at accessing these PC discs. We are looking at powerbooks on ebay. We want airport at home to connect with our iMac in the kitchen with DSL... also, we wanna be able to hook up to a hot spot, say, in Starbucks or whatever.

I'd get a Apple Wireless Mouse, They really do reach 30 feet. Make sure your PowerBook your gonna get has built-in Bluetooth though.

You can set your iMac to be an access point, or just to connect to it, I think. I know it's possible. Does your iMac have Airport Extreme or Airport? I think you need those to do this.

Your PowerBook will most likely have an AirPort Extreme card.. then, you can just connect to any network extremely easy from the top menu bar in the Finder. It looks like a UFO and looks like the picture attached.

Hope that helps.

EDIT: I don't know why it's saving as a .pdf, but, you can open it still. Weird.

EDIT: I don't know why it's saving as a .pdf, but, you can open it still. Weird.

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If you're wanting to attach a picture viewable in your post, and it is initially in PDF format, just open it in Preview, go to File>Export, select JPEG and save. Attaching a JPEG with your post will give you the desired results.

I am very new to this forum. My husband would like to get rid of hi PC laptop. He wants a MAC laptop because we love them. Anyhow, he needs to run the PC software that comes with his curriculum on this machine to do powerpoint presentations for his students on a screen in the classroom. He would like to walk around the classroom talking and using a bluetooth or wireless mouse to access the pages of the program he's using. We were not impressed with the MacBook Pro at accessing these PC discs. We are looking at powerbooks on ebay. We want airport at home to connect with our iMAC in the kitchen with DSL... also, we wanna be able to hook up to a hot spot, say, in Starbucks or whatever.

What RAM, Hardware memory, whatever should he be looking at?

thanks in advance!!!

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Get a MacBook Pro - you're not impressed with how the Mac accesses PC discs? PC programs don't run on Macs you know...

Microsoft Office is available for Mac and is in my opinion, better then it's PC counterpart - PowerPoint presentations are no big issue, they'll work equally well on both platforms. I don't think you need any special software to run PowerPoint presentations, besides Office:Mac of course, just plug the laptop into the projector and away you go.. I use a program called "Salling Clicker" (two "l's") with my Mac and my bluetooth phone - it allows you to control PowerPoint presentations whilst displaying the slide and notes on my phone's screen. It can access and control nearly every part of your Mac.

The MacBook Pro has built-in wireless (802.11b/g and I think a now with the MacBook Pro) so hooking up to hotspots is easy - my iBook never had any problems at Starbucks (blergh, chain coffee stores) and I would expect the same from the MBP.

Actually, if you can wait a while, rumour is (you can put whatever level of faith in rumours as you want, just don't blame us if it's wrong) that the replacement for the iBook will be out sometime in early April. It's likely to be smaller and cheaper than the MacBook Pro but not short on ability.

If he wants to walk around a classroom and click onwards with a Bluetooth device, it's perfectly possible.

There's a very cool piece of software called Sailing Clicker which can turn phones/PDAs with Bluetooth into a remote control for your Mac. You can even see what the next slide or the notes for the current slide are on the screen of your device. Very impressive.

If he wants to walk around a classroom and click onwards with a Bluetooth device, it's perfectly possible.

There's a very cool piece of software called Sailing Clicker which can turn phones/PDAs with Bluetooth into a remote control for your Mac. You can even see what the next slide or the notes for the current slide are on the screen of your device. Very impressive.

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Applespider and Chundles you have introduced me to the coolest software I've seen in a long time. I give presentations pretty frequently, but I had no idea I could use my Palm as a remote for them, and iTunes, and iPhoto, and...

Every piece of software is developed for a platform (Windows, MacOS, etc.). If his textbooks come with Windows-only software, he'll either need to have a Windows machine on the side to access it, or he'll need to get Virtual PC, a software program developed by Microsoft that allows Macs to run Windows software (by emulating a Windows environment - which means there will be a speed loss involved.)

Microsoft does make PowerPoint (and Word and Excel) for Mac. It's most cost effective to get the whole Microsoft Office suite than individual pieces. However, as someone else mentioned, he should get to know Keynote. It's easier to use than PowerPoint, and has the ability to make nicer slides (though, of course, the artistic ability of the slide maker has more to do with it.) And, it's a heck of a lot less expensive.

PowerPoint for Mac should be able to access his old PP files with no problem. Keynote can also open them, but they'll need to be cleaned up (transitions don't line up, etc.).

For future reference, "MAC" is a networking term. "Mac" is an operating system. You own an iMac.

Accessing his PC disks should not be a problem. Macs have always been great at reading DOS-formatted disks. Opening the files, however, requires that you own the Mac equivalent programs (or similar programs.) For example, to open up a Microsoft Word (Windows) file, he'll either need Microsoft Word (Mac) or a program (we call them applications) that reads Word files (such as Pages). I'm not sure where you got the idea that using a PB would be any more helpful than a MBP - it's a software issue.

Wow, spend their money!
I'm going to give you a much cheaper alternative.
Get the 14" iBook, and pick up a wireless keyboard/mouse combo from Kensington. Not only will you save a TON of money, your battery will last a LOT longer, and the Airport range will almost double. I banned PBooks where I work becasue when it comes down to performance/price the iBook wins every time.

We were not impressed with the MacBook Pro at accessing these PC discs. We are looking at powerbooks on ebay.

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I think folks have addressed this a bit, but we'd really need to know what you mean by accessing PC discs.

I can't think of any situations that a MBP wouldn't be able to access a disk but a powerbook could.

If you mean: He needs a mac to install and run PC programs; you cannot do this on a mac. You could buy and install Virtual PC as jsalzer said, but it'd be simpler (and much faster) to buy the mac equivalent (e.g., Powerpoint).

If you mean: He needs a mac to run files/documents on a PC disk; you shouldn't have any problems.

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